iCub: The not-yet-finished story of building a robot child

The Stereotype Content Model (SCM) was first proposed by Susan Fiske and her colleagues (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick & Xu, 2002; see also Fiske, 2012 and Fiske, 2017). The SCM specifies that when someone encounters a new group, they will stereotype them based on two metrics: warmth—or that group’s perceived intent, and how likely they are to provide help or inflict harm—and competence—or their ability to carry out that objective. Depending on the warmth-competence...

Mechanical systems are analogous to to electrical networks where springs and masses play similar roles to inductors and capacitors, respectively. A viscous damper in mechanical systems functions similarly to a resistor in electrical networks, dissipating energy. The forces acting on a mass in such systems include an applied force in the direction of motion, counteracted by forces from the spring, a viscous damper, and the mass's acceleration. This interplay of forces is mathematically...

Reproductive cloning is the process of producing a genetically identical copy—a clone—of an entire organism. While clones can be produced by splitting an early embryo—similar to what happens naturally with identical twins—cloning of adult animals is usually done by a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).
Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
In SCNT, an egg cell is taken from an animal and its nucleus is removed, creating an enucleated egg. Then a somatic...

Proportional Integral (PI) controllers are a fundamental component in modern control systems, widely used to enhance performance and mitigate steady-state errors. They are particularly effective in applications such as automatic brightness adjustment on smartphones, where they excel at mitigating steady-state errors for step-function inputs. Unlike PD controllers, which require time-varying errors to function optimally, PI controllers leverage their integral component to address residual...

The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
Exploration...